


Holding Pattern

by periferal



Series: Triumvirate [3]
Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Artificial Intelligence, Destiny 2, Gen, Violence, Waking Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 10:58:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12746952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/periferal/pseuds/periferal
Summary: You are Talos-9.You are a Titan.Your city has fallen.Your ghost cannot save you.





	Holding Pattern

You wake up to burning and the sound of distant voices. You ache. Your pain is different and the same from a human's: an error message in your joints. 

This is fine. Your ghost will heal you, as it always does. 

You wait, half crumpled on the ground, for it to find you. The pain will ease, in time. It always does.

Turning your head, you see water. 

If you were human, perhaps you would be thirsty. You are not, and even if you were this water is foul, tainted with dust and oil and 

You shut your vision for a moment and turn your head again. You push yourself to your knees. The ache has not left. Your ghost has not come. 

The voices approach. Cabal, walking freely--Legionaries on patrol? You look, hoping no one knows you are not just another pile of twisted metal without that animating spirit you do not understand in yourself.

Yes, those are Legionaries on patrol.

They have taken the city, and you are little more than scrap  _ in potentia _ , waiting to be found. 

Here, if you were human, a cough would wrack your chest and you would fall, hands flats, perhaps hurting your wrists. You are not human, but the servos in your legs were damaged when a great beast kicked you off a ledge, and so standing is still a chore.

Your ghost has not come, but you are not dead, so it must also not be dead. You ignore the knowledge you possess telling you your logic is flawed. Your mind is a marvel of interconnected mental strata, layers upon layers of intelligence; denial comes so easily to you.

You choose a debris pile to walk towards at random. Well, not exactly at random. You follow the water to where you do not have to scramble so much. 

There is static in your head where half your vision processing should be. You see red blots, and you cannot blink to clear your eyes. Sunlight streams in from somewhere behind you.

“Guardian?”

Your ghost has come for you. Its voice is broken, but still, it heals you. Your joints untwist, the error message silences itself. 

“The Light’s gone,” it says, and you stare at it. How has healed you, then? “I can heal you, but not bring you back.”

Oh. 

You look at your repaired hands, and the armor which cannot be repaired, at the dust and metal in the water. 

“We have to get out of here,” it says.

You run through the water, scramble over the great pile of debris and drag yourself into the sunlight. 

It is cold outside despite the brightness.


End file.
